NEW YORK (AP) — Kane Brown is in his new house studio simply outdoors Nashville, getting ready to have the primary sit-down dialog about his fourth studio album, “The High Road.” It is a becoming title, as a result of pounding the pavement is one thing he is greater than conversant in. A number of brief days in the past, he was in Los Angeles, performing on the iHeartRadio Jingle Ball alongside an eclectic mixture of the largest performers — SZA, Tate McRae, Madison Beer, T-Ache, Paris Hilton and Ok-pop group NCT Dream amongst them.
To the untrained ear, it may appear uncommon pairing — one of many nice trendy nation voices alongside pop acts. However genre-mixing? That is one thing Brown is aware of a bit of bit about, too.
Nation is on the coronary heart of every part he does — the style’s narrative model, fiddles, slide guitar and Brown’s signature twang carry all through — however “The High Road” is not afraid to play with completely different sounds. He says he is “always been kind of nervous to push boundaries and do certain things. But I’ve been here for almost a decade now, so I needed to stop hiding and just do what I love to do. And country is always my number one.”
“This is by far my favorite album, from the sequencing to the songwriting to the different sounds. There’s definitely a song for everybody,” he continues. “My other albums, I always kind of, you know, cared what people thought about. And this album, we don’t… we gave our everything into the songs.”
He is additionally no stranger to working with quite a lot of artists, from regional Mexican nation celebrity Carin León on “The One (Pero No Como Yo),” which launched earlier this 12 months, to 2019’s “One Thing Right” with EDM big Marshmello. The helmet-wearing DJ is again on “The High Road,” with the radio smash “Miles On It.”
This album, which will probably be launched Jan. 24, contains extra options than another in Brown’s discography, together with tracks with Khalid, Jelly Roll, and the legendary Brad Paisley.
They happened naturally: Khalid expressed curiosity in eager to go nation, Brown helped him make it occur. For the Paisley observe “Things We Quit,” Brown shared a video of him singing it on social media, and “a lot of people said, ‘This sounds like a Brad Paisley song,’” he says, smiling. “And it’s kind of a comedy country song, a little bit, so he was perfect for that.”
And as for Jelly Roll, on the music “Haunted”? That one was written whereas Brown was staying in a lodge in Manchester, England.
“It was this big hotel, and I had the suite, which was a bank vault. So, the bank vault was actually in my room and there were these, like, old paintings on the wall. And we wrote three or four songs that day and we couldn’t think of a song title. And I was like, ‘This is place is haunted,’” he recalls. “Let’s write a song called ‘Haunted,’ about depression and all that. So, I mean, it actually, it came out really quick and, you know, it’s meaningful to me. So hopefully it’ll be meaningful to a lot of other people.”
Jelly Roll has by no means been one to veer away from subjects of psychological well being, and he made the perfect collaborator. “That song is so him,” Brown says. “He didn’t think that I was going to release it, so he was trying to keep it for himself. So that told me that the song meant even more to him than what I thought it was going to mean.”
Vital to Brown, little question, are two new duets along with his spouse Katelyn, following the success of their 2023’s single “Thank God.”
“Our music is about telling our story,” she informed The Related Press.
There’s the R&B-pop of “Body Talk,” and a traditionalist’s nation tune in “Do Us Aside” — pulling from a long tradition of country music greats performing with their partners. The latter should come as no surprise. “Our favorite duet to sing together is Randy Travis and Carrie Underwood’s “I Told You So,” so we’ve always wanted to have that type of song,” he says.
And nation songs, he is bought quite a lot of them: the jukebox “Fiddle in the Band,” the slow-burn “Backseat Driver,” the barstool swaying of “Says I Can.”
Or the nearer, “’When You Forget,’ a song that I wrote about my granddad with Alzheimer’s. To me, that’s ‘90s country song storytelling,” he says. “That’s keep the tradition there — and then I go far left with some other songs.”
On “The High Road,” Brown believes every observe tells a narrative — and he appears to be like ahead to sharing them, each by the file and on a North American tour subsequent spring.
“I just hope people can find a piece of themselves in each song,” he says. “Or… at least one song.”
“The High Road” Tracklist
1. “I Am”
2. “Fiddle In the Band”
3. “Backseat Driver”
4. “Miles On It” (that includes Marshmello)
5. “Says I Can”
6. “3”
7. “Rescue” (that includes Khalid)
8. “Haunted” (that includes Jelly Roll)
9. “Start A Fire”
10. “Body Talk” (that includes Katelyn Brown)
11. “Gorgeous”
12. “Beside Me”
13. “I Can Feel It”
14. “Things We Quit” (that includes Brad Paisley)
15. “Back Around”
16. “Stay”
17. “Do Us Apart” (that includes Katelyn Brown)
18. “When You Forget”
